Build Social Media App Like Instagram

Summary: Instagram is a famous social media application widely used for sharing photos and videos. Creating an Instagram like application needs high effort. The article emphasizes how to build an Instagram-like application, its key features, and its technological stack.  

The time and cost of creating and maintaining such an application are enormous but can be reduced with the DhiWise.

How? Keep reading to know more about it.

Instagram: Popular social media application

Instagram is the world’s most popular social media platform for sharing photos and videos. The application has its own user base. The official Instagram report shows that there are 1 billion monthly active users and 500 million people use Instagram stories every day.

Instagram is considered to be the most engaging platform than other social media applications. So it is worth posting ads on it for product promotion. Plus, Instagram advertising has a potential reach of 928.5 million people.

Many startups, entrepreneurs, and developers are inspired by the success of Instagram. This inspiration resulted in the appearance of applications like Swipe, Snapchat, and Flicker.

Although these applications serve the same purpose of sharing photos and videos, they have different functionalities at their core.

The most successful social media applications such as Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter have one thing in common, each platform is dedicated to the specific user community with a common interest. Therefore, by creating an app that focuses on the specific needs of the user, other users will not overdose with irrelevant content.

The best examples here are,

• Linkedin: a professional networking platform.
• Dribble: Social networking platform for digital designers and creative users.
  

How did Instagram become a social media giant?

The Instagram application was first created by Kavin Systrom and Mike Krieger under the name Burbn. To make the app unique, Mike focuses on the photo-sharing feature which became popular among its users. Systrom closed his first funding of $5000,000 for Burbn on 5th March 2010.

On October 6, 2010, Instagram had first released its app for iOS devices, and later in 2012,  a version of its app for Android phones. This new version for the Android application has been downloaded more than 1 million times in less than one day.

On April 9, 2012, Facebook bought Instagram for $1 billion with the plan to keep the Instagram company independently managed.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Instagram launched a feature called “co-watching” that allows users to share posts over video calls. The idea was to encourage people to stay at home and connect with family and friends.

In March 2021, Instagram launched a new feature where four people can go live at once.

Instagram launched many other features to improve user experience and social connectivity. However, the platform has also caught the attention of entrepreneurs, business owners, and marketing specialists too.

Instagram: Not just a photo-sharing social media platform

Instagram has a variety of tools such as filters, photo editors, to manipulate photos, but beyond that, it is becoming a popular branding strategy for businesses. The platform has a great potential to reach a large group audience as it is more engaging.

Businesses can showcase their brand through the platform. In return, Instagram will receive a commission for every transaction made through its platform.

Now, let’s understand how to build a social media application like Instagram.

Instagram technology stack

Before building an application like Instagram, know about the Instagram technology stack.

• Programming Languages
  

» Python, JavaScript, Objective-C, Java

• Framework and Libraries
  

» React, React Native, Django

• DevOps
  

» Webpack, Babel, Fabric, Flow(JS), Sentry

• Cloud Services
  

» Amazon S3, EC2, EBS

Step by Step guide to building Instagram like app

• Define Your Audience
  

Before planning your application development gather sufficient information about your target audience. Always keep in mind that the social media platform is all about people and their specific interests.

• Define business strategy
  

Set your business indicators, study other social media competitors, and discover features not available in other applications

• Frontend designing
  

Sketch out how the user will navigate the application and its flow, then design your front end accordingly.

• Build application backend
  

Select the platforms you want in your application and build APIs, set servers and databases. Finally,  test your solution.

• Publishing and Marketing
  

Create promotional materials, user guide documents and videos for a user guide, a FAQ section for quick answers, document the application, create a  proper description for Google Play Market, develop a marketing strategy for the application.

• Technical support
  

Get feedback from your customers, resolve issues and application bugs, respond to customer queries, and update your application accordingly.

Instagram features for MVP(Minimum Viable Product)

Building app MVP minimizes the risk of failure. You can launch the MVP application directly and get leads in advance to define additional development vectors.

Here is the list of features you can use in your application. Choose the features that are crucial for your target audience.

• New user registration
• Login and profile customization
• Account setting
• Search and filter option
• Automatic data encryption
• Global posting, commenting
• Online tools for photo editing and manipulation
• Group management and setting
• Newsfeeds setting
• Location tracking
• Private messaging
• Request/ Invite friend
• Media content management
• Notification setting
  

The only way to make a better application is through continuous improvement in product quality.

Once you have launched your application, try to get customer feedback and develop your application accordingly.  

Application development cost

Developing Instagram like applications with the basic features can take 3 to 6 months, with an approximate development cost of $ 7,750. The cost and time can be reduced by using an application development platform that accelerates the development process.

Building Instagram like application with DhiWise

DhiWise is an intuitive and innovative platform that optimizes the process of application development with its unique features. It enables developers to build full-stack web and mobile applications faster with minimal resources.

Here are some key features that will help you to efficiently build Instagram like application:

• Simplify building scalable projects by maintaining separate APIs for each platform(web, mobile, Admin panel)
• Generate customizable source code automatically with minimal input.
• Set up schemas (models), authentication, permissions, routes, and configurations
• Create constant files, policies 
• Create a scheduler to minimize repetitive task
• Automatically generate API documentation
• Enable efficient collaboration and code sharing with GitHub and GitLab integration
• Support multiple frameworks and technologies: Node.js, Express.js, Kotlin, React.js MongoDB, SQL, NoSQL, Flutter, Laravel, and Swift
• Provides browser-based coding functionality to build apps. Avoid IDEs and on-premise code editors. 
• Provides ready-to-use professionally designed templates and screen library for web and mobile app development.

So, if you are building a social media app like Instagram or Facebook use any of the following app design UI kits by DhiWise and customize it as per your requirements. 

1. TikPik short video and social networking app UI kit for flutter
2. Social dashboards UI kit for web react
3. Social Media app UI kit UI kit for Flutter

Wrap up

In this blog, we have learned about how to make an application like Instagram, its key features, technology stack, and cost of development. Also, we have seen how the process of app development can be accelerated using DhiWise with its multi-technology support and unique features.

Click here to know more about DhiWise, its features, and supported technologies. 

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